Promethean Support

[StuartC]

Hi guys,

 

I just wanted to test the waters and ask how you're generally feeling about Promethean and it's support. I know this might seem like shouting in a crowd of sleeping lions but I am genuinely interested.

 

It seems as if most problems have been fixed lately and I wondered how everyone is doing. Are there any things you would like to see improving or are there any extra services you believe Promethean should provide to help you?

 

I manage the Knowledgebase for Promethean and help with escalated cases so if there is anything you want Promethean to do differently I may be able to make that happen.

 

[note: I can't directly resolve specific cases in this thread, they should always go through our support teams, this is more a brainstorm thread to find out how everything is]

 

/me holds breath and braces for impact

 

[edit: 100th post FTW!!!]

[Joanne]

we once had a dodgy board and the repair man was nice. It got replaced within a couple of weeks which was good. we have a faulty power supply at the moment though and after e-mailing them we have had no reply... which i would say is promethians main weakness... the whole getting round to organising the repair.

[Newton]

I've the Promethean support very good though you can useally guess that they want to you to install the older v3 driver and reboot the system every other mouse click. Which is a change from a year ago then its was "have you got the latest driver and software patch" and i'm not going to help you until you have.

 

It would be nice to have the firmware updates for boards avaiable for download, and 3 year warrenty on the power packs.

[witch]

The original installs were not good (contractors, I believe) but I have always been pleased with the quality of the telephone support - friendly, helpful and knowledgeable

[ConTheITGuy]

The original installs were not good (contractors, I believe) but I have always been pleased with the quality of the telephone support - friendly, helpful and knowledgeable

 

I would say most of our installs have been excellent - again contractors. The only ones I was a little dissapointed with were the ones we had later, which apppeared to be Promethean employees.

 

Andy

[StuartC]

I've the Promethean support very good though you can useally guess that they want to you to install the older v3 driver and reboot the system every other mouse click. Which is a change from a year ago then its was "have you got the latest driver and software patch" and i'm not going to help you until you have.

 

It would be nice to have the firmware updates for boards avaiable for download, and 3 year warrenty on the power packs.

 

First a thanks for all the good comments, I won't say I was shocked but I did expect to take a little bit of a battering.

 

Anyway what's everyones thoughts on firmware availability? It does help sometimes, and is available from support, but if it is used wrongly then it can knacker a system. The problem is responsibility when something goes wrong. We've worked hard over the last 3-4 years to make firmware updates easier.

 

Also I'm very happy with the latest Activdriver 4.1.13, I've personally put a lot of effort in the developement of the driver since v4 and it should now handle a lot of bad USB cabling situations.

[CyberNerd]

I'd love to know what happened to the linux drivers, I asked a couple of years ago and they were 'in progress' so I put my name down to test.

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3610&highlight=promethean+linux+driver

[Geoff]

It's a pain to keep track of the updates, both for the software and driver.

[DMcCoy]

The power adaptors seem to have a habit of dying, and the boards draw a bit to much power from usb to be friendly with other devices (like mice!).

 

Apart from that they work ok, teachers like the software.

[StuartC]

ok, I'll try and tackle these:

 

I'd love to know what happened to the linux drivers, I asked a couple of years ago and they were 'in progress' so I put my name down to test.

 

I have it installed on a workstation next to me, I've also had an email sent to me asking what resources our support teams will need to support it. I hate saying 'soon' but as you can see, I really think it's soon.

 

We're pushing a bit more in Spain/Germany and there are an awful lot of Linux based systems there.

 

It's a pain to keep track of the updates, both for the software and driver.

 

In what way? We have the update button on the software dashboard. I'd like to see something similar for drivers (and dare I say it, firmware).

 

I've heard that we are going to publish a schedule for releases, and those releases will be at larger intervals. There is the downside to that which is it might take longer to fix little things. I'll arrange how we are going to distribute hotfixes.

 

The power adaptors seem to have a habit of dying, and the boards draw a bit to much power from usb to be friendly with other devices (like mice!).

 

I think it's normal that power supplies take a bit of a battering in systems, I've had some experience of that myself at home. We're fixing a lot of USB issues, the latest driver behaves a lot nicer with hubs for example, and I know there is work underway to change the power situation.

[Geoff]

In what way? We have the update button on the software dashboard. I'd like to see something similar for drivers (and dare I say it, firmware).

 

I've heard that we are going to publish a schedule for releases, and those releases will be at larger intervals. There is the downside to that which is it might take longer to fix little things. I'll arrange how we are going to distribute hotfixes.

 

Sadly, I am not in front of a machine that has said software installed, thus I do not have an update button.

 

Ideally I'd like a mailing list I could sign up to that'd tell me when new versions come out (similar to OSS projects 'Announce' lists). But please, no marketing drivel announcements.

 

As for drivers, is it possible you can talk to Microsoft about having them put on windows update and/or pushed down via WSUS? HP/Dell/etc seem to do this, which makes my life easier.

[StuartC]

Sadly, I am not in front of a machine that has said software installed, thus I do not have an update button.

 

Ideally I'd like a mailing list I could sign up to that'd tell me when new versions come out (similar to OSS projects 'Announce' lists). But please, no marketing drivel announcements.

 

As for drivers, is it possible you can talk to Microsoft about having them put on windows update and/or pushed down via WSUS? HP/Dell/etc seem to do this, which makes my life easier.

 

aha (and I only noticed this myself a few weeks back) but the driver is already on windows update.

 

That's a good idea about the newsletter. And if I'm responsible it would just be facts and no marketing(bs). I'll get that done.

[Sylv3r]

We had issues with the powerpacks on the +2 boards we had 9 fail in the first week of installation. Obvioussly this must have been a bad batch and were swapped out relatively quick.

 

Firmware updates are painless and very simple - i've not had one fail on my yet...

 

The one comment i would say with the +2 boards is that it is easily knocked out of alightment as if the keystone is wrong on the projector. We haven't really had much luck with engineers fixing this issue when they have been out.

[john]

Support engineer I had recently was very nice, helpful, polite and cheerful just what I like in an engineer, someone that will have a chat with you whilst working, so happy with that.

 

Firmware more readily avalable would be nice yeh, I have a CD from Promethean from about a year ago and having that and upgrading most of our boards using that disk fixed a lot of issues we had that were niggly that you never bother logging as you didn't have an hour to spare to test, upgrade drivers, check cables etc.

[ZeroHour]

Well I am not sure where to start. Our promethean install has been pretty much hell.

We bought 25 boards and we have problems all the time to the point now where I think teachers simply have given up.

We have logged several calls but have never been called back except once, when the board was decreed to have had a hardware fault and a promethean guy did replace that board. We had a few emails a while ago but they all said the same thing of “just get the latest driver” and it never cures our issues.

Our boards drop off all the time (we are using serial) so they are unresponsive and the only cure is a pc reboot. We have called tech support and we tried getting our account manager involved and that made no difference. We feel very much like we have paid the bill to be dropped from support all together.

We have had issues deploying both the network MSI and the version 4 driver. We gave up using the network MSI as I had created my own msi (search the forums for a guide) based on the downloadable copy on your site. As for the driver we have to manually deploy that everywhere now and regardless of what version we use our boards still drop off.

We had older Prometheans that were not primary based ones and they work with exactly the same spec of pc and exactly the same software and never drop off. It very much seems like the new batch of boards are the problem but as the tech support dont bother to ever call us back we have given up.

Its a lot of money down the drain at this point and I personally have wasted so much of my time dealing with teachers that dont understand we can do nothing to fix the issue let alone all the time spent debugging and trying to get a response out of tech support. The only factor that seems to make a difference is the age/type of board we have.

I even went to the trouble of writing a guide on how we deploy software here so tech support could try and replicate the issues but we never heard again (and I have chased this up far too many times now).

We are truly disheartened here now and are seriously considering switching to a complete smartboard solution as support is something we must have.

[logonui]

We once bought some promethean boards, decided they weren't worth the bother supporting them and bought SMART instead. We seem to have far less problems with these (it was a while ago so things may have improved since then)

[bossman]

We Have 35 mixed serial and usb Promethean IWBs and to date the only problem that i have is one board trying constantly to install the drivers, although I have installed them through the network. I feel it could be the users profile which i have cleaned but to no avail. My next move is to get her logged into another workstation on another board but have not had the time.

[StuartC]

Thanks for the comments guys, the latest batch are more "constructive" which isn't always a bad thing.

 

Zerohour, I'm very aware of what happened with your systems, especially the msi problems. I know we've sent guys to look at specific hardware problems and I know that my colleague and I have been working hard to get our msi writers to change their ways. We've sent over links to everything you've said on here, logs of problems reported, we've even sent that great guide to get an msi that works on your systems. All we've been told is something along the lines of "it's an msi, it should work on systems that correctly support msi's".

 

I honestly don't agree which is why I bring it up constantly with our product management, but I fear my comments are falling on deaf ears. Who is your account manager, I'd like a word with them about it.

 

Logonui, I think most problems are gone now, but depends on how long ago you went the way of smart. The biggest improvement was probably the signing of the driver in v4, and the fixing of v4s bugs in 4.1.13. We still have some issues with the msi (see above) but on the whole it's fine. Our escalated cases seem to be at an all time low. Well they will be when 3.6 comes out for the mac later this month.

 

bossman, interesting case there. If it's something that just happens to that user then you're going along the right path of trying a different workstation, isolating if it's the user or computer. Tech support is great, a game of isolating faults.

[webman]

We've had a few power supply issues as well but they have been dealt with by Promethean support so can't complain about that really.

 

I work at the same school as Bossman, but would like to mention another issue we have had/are having. Sometimes (seemingly random) the pen control on some board becomes very erratic - ie. cursor jumping around on the spot where the pen is. Disconnecting the AC supply to the board's PSU and the USB cable from the computer, and then re-connecting these seems to rectify this but the problem sometimes returns. One board displaying this problem was replaced by Promethean and the other had it's electronics replaced. The board that was replaced had "air bubbles" on the board's rear surface which the engineer seemed to think was the cause of the problem.

 

We also had an issue with installation (one engineer) at the end of the summer holidays 2007 but that was eventually sorted.

 

Although Promethean support is usually very good, it is an inconvenience when things (especially whole whiteboards) have to be replaced as lessons have to be re-arranged as the engineer has to travel over 100 miles. We can't help but think that some corners have been cut in certain places to meet demand for what is a good product.

 

And the pens - bring back the black!

[ZeroHour]

Thanks for the comments StuartC...this is the first real communication we have had from Promethean since October.

The problem to do with the MSI was not so much the MSI structure (with regards to the driver), it was more to do with the splash screen that installs/configures the driver. If I could get a test version that could hide that splash window I think it would deploy okay, as when I removed the line that launches that splash, the installation would not freeze - although the driver did not work, since it is set up during that splash stage.

The boards dropping off is the biggest issue for us. Teachers complain bitterly that when it happens they have to reboot their PC in the middle of a lesson to get the board working again! The only factor connected to this reliability issue seems to be the age of the boards. The handful of professional boards we have (a few years old now) work perfectly, but the "junior" ones (installed at the start of this academic session) drop off all the time . Are they the same board or has there been a revision in recent years?

I will PM you our Account Manager's name, as I don't want to name names on a public forum

I am just glad we know someone is looking into it. That has also been an issue; not just the fact we have unsolved technical problems, but that no-one at Promethean is communicating with us to even say "we are still looking into it"!

[StuartC]

Thanks for the comments StuartC...this is the first real communication we have had from Promethean since October.

The problem to do with the MSI was not so much the MSI structure (with regards to the driver), it was more to do with the splash screen that installs/configures the driver. If I could get a test version that could hide that splash window I think it would deploy okay, as when I removed the line that launches that splash, the installation would not freeze - although the driver did not work, since it is set up during that splash stage.

The boards dropping off is the biggest issue for us. Teachers complain bitterly that when it happens they have to reboot their PC in the middle of a lesson to get the board working again! The only factor connected to this reliability issue seems to be the age of the boards. The handful of professional boards we have (a few years old now) work perfectly, but the "junior" ones (installed at the start of this academic session) drop off all the time . Are they the same board or has there been a revision in recent years?

I will PM you our Account Manager's name, as I don't want to name names on a public forum

I am just glad we know someone is looking into it. That has also been an issue; not just the fact we have unsolved technical problems, but that no-one at Promethean is communicating with us to even say "we are still looking into it"!

 

 

Yeah, I was looking into that splash screen too. It's an odd thing for a driver to do and if it's necessary then I can't think of too many quiet ways to do it. I'll speak to the driver guy (well, on monday now) and see if I can get him to write a version that does this quietly for you to test.

 

I'd ask you to give the new Activdriver 4.1.13 a go for dropping Activboards, we really went to town on it for reliability on it's connection because a few very large sites in the USA went out of action because of the same thing. Not nearly as many people in the UK were affected, but all seems to be good at the moment.

 

Webman, I think the engineer situation will improve soon. A lot more guys will be on the case so travel won't be so bad. Just feel sorry for Zerohour, he's up in Aberdeen if memory serves me right and our engineer travelled from London (!!!!) to see him.

 

That jittering behaviour could be anything, would be tempted to get someone out to look at it. If I would put money on a cause (given the little information I have) I would put it down to PSU, Power Supply, Activpen, Activboard in that order. Try it without the projector mains connected, I've seen a difference between the ground on 2 mains loops cause this problem before.

 

Have a good weekend all.

[john]

And the pens - bring back the black!

I agree, and spoke to someone at BETT regarding, she hadn't seen a black pen ever thought it was maybe from a Presenta board or something else. But this is actually a problem for me as I actually cannot use a current style one as its painful to use.

 

I have problems with my hands in that they are often numb and go numb very quick when writing, and despite what people say and think about fat pens being better for problems like mine, they are not for me, the black pen is much better for mine. So making both versions would be much better, and also I found the black ones more robust than the current style.

 

Also I think the younger children would prefer a thin pen as they are often taught to use Berol Handwriting pens which are thin pens not thick ones so it would be more similar to them so may help them perhaps?

 

So theres another bit of feedback for you Stu

[FN-GM]

It would be nice if you could make the pens a little more robust, they tend to get damaged easy, the smartborad don't get damaged just sometimes the tip on a few.

[StuartC]

Ok, the facts.

 

1. Promethean have supplied 3 kinds of Activpen for use with Promethean boards. The Activpen 1 2 and 3.

 

2. The slim black pens you're referring to are the Activpen 1 (I have about 10 knocking around in my desk, but I do tend to inherit faulty ones).

 

3. Activpen 1 and 2 had generally the same failure rates. These can easily be identified by either being really slim or both types have nibs (you can pull them out) that are about 6.5cm long. Activpen 1s were not used very often (IWBs weren't very common back then) so might have lasted longer because of that.

 

4. The failures were mostly caused by cracks around the middle or the nib switch failing. In Activpen 3 the inner gubbins (technical term ) have been rotated to reduce the chance of cracking. The nib switch has also been replaced with a resistive contact. Kind of like the pad contact thing you've seen on calculator buttons after you've pulled one apart (don't tell me you've never done it).

 

My advice is to try a few of the Activpen 3 pens if you believe you are having problems. All pens are covered by a 1 year warranty but we haven't sold any Activpen 1 or 2s for well over a year so there are none under warranty.

 

Smart pens don't get damaged because they are technically dumb pens, you could use a stick or a rock and it wouldn't make much difference. It's a bit of a trade I think. Would you rather a rock solid pen with a board that could break that costs you £xxx to replace or would you want a rock solid board with a pen that could break that costs you £xx to replace.

 

I agree though. In my opinion everyone should use a slimmer pen with the Activboard. I find it easier. The argument is that the chunkier pens make it easier for children to use. My 2 arguments against this would be, children don't use the Activboard 90% of the time, and children should get used to using normal sized pens. I'll bring this up next time I see product management, cheers for the input guys.

[plexer]

On the whole we don't have too many issues with our promethean kit.

 

We have somewhere around 20'ish boards installed and in use daily.

 

Most teachers use their laptops to connect and apart from a couple of the very first ones installed they all use usb connection to the board with no problem.

 

The biggest issue we've had is ActivStudio 2 running really slowy which is believed to be down to AV software and now we've changed it will have to check that again.

 

We've had a couple of psu's go faulty but they were replaced by promethean who even sent a spare one.

 

Installation wise we normally use our preferred local supplier/installer who do a fantastic job, the other year we had some promethean installers, or could just be contractors that change their t-shirts depending on who they work for and that wasn't good.

 

The guys were only interested in leaving middle of the afternoon so they could drive home and one of them drilled into a bespoke desk top which resulted in promethean having to pay for the replacement.

 

Ben